Friday, May 07, 2010

Importance of Spices in Indian Cooking

Ask any person about the Indian food anywhere in the world, the first thing that comes to their mind is the use of wide variety of spices in the Indian foods. Indian food has become synonymous with spicy food but in reality it is not so. If you have visited India you might find there are a wide variety of flavors in the Indian cuisine and it varies from region to region. Whatever be the region the use of spice is not heavy in the right preparation of the food except in some regions. There are many medicinal values to the spices that are added to the Indian food preparation.

Turmeric powder is an important spice that is added to almost all the food preparations particularly for the poultry, fish, and meat. Turmeric is a very good antibiotic, detoxifier, cancer fighting agent, painkiller, and also has anti-inflammatory properties. With many such medicinal properties it is not wonder that is used in the Indian food preparations. Ginger that is used in many Indian foods is a very good remedy for liver complaints and many other problems. Spices like cardamom, coriander, cumin, pepper, karipatta, and cloves have their special properties in healing certain conditions like headaches, fever, intestinal disorders, nausea, and so on.

The addition of spices in the Indian food gives that unique flavor and color to the preparations and you also get the medicinal values out of it. Taking the right kind of Indian food will enhance your health, heals, soothes and refreshes you to a greater extent. The Indian medicine system, the Ayurveda uses these spices to heal certain conditions. The Indian spicy gravy that is part of many Indian foods contains a mix of all these spices and you get all the medicinal benefits of these spices when you eat those Indian foods. Certain spices are mixed together to form the 'masala' that is used in most of the Indian gravies. These 'masala' are used in the preparation of many side dishes that are used with the Indian bread, rice, and other vegetarian and non-vegetarian preparations. The combination of the different spices used in the Indian foods varies from region to region within India and this give the unique flavor for the dishes in that region. You have to visit the authentic Indian restaurants if you want to experience the real Indian food with the right proportions of spices in it.